


I Can't

by WrittenFire



Series: Whumptober 2019: Mcdanno Style [7]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Danny "Danno" Williams, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25586830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrittenFire/pseuds/WrittenFire
Summary: 474 words of Daniel Williams angst.
Series: Whumptober 2019: Mcdanno Style [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1503434
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	I Can't

**Author's Note:**

> day 15: scars.

Danny crushes the tickets in his hands, staring blankly at the empty driveway before him. Mom’s car isn’t there, her and his sisters off for a shopping trip. It’s as expected, nothing startling there. But dad’s truck is gone, as well; and with the hall closet still swung open and missing Matty’s duffle bag, Danny knows he’s off with his youngest, spending a day at the rink helping Matty’s little league hockey team.

Aunt Lina was supposed to take him, though; Danny and his dad had tickets to a concert. They were a father's day present, a chance for Danny and his dad to bond, just the two of them for the first time in years. Being forgotten, left behind is just the latest in a string of disappointments, less of a crack as it is the widening of a tear.

As he takes a blade to skin, he has no way of knowing the scar that will follow is just the first of many.

_ \-- _

Standing there, watching as they shovel the dirt onto Billy’s coffin, Danny feels something in him start to break, irreparably. He was his best friend, his first love--the only one who knew of the way he harmed himself, that knew the story behind each scar, large and small. 

How is he to go on without him?

  
  
  


\--

_ This can’t be happening  _ runs through his head on repeat, hands shaking as they hover over his knee.  _ It can’t it can’t it can’t  _ his breath comes in shaky spurts, the haze of pain a wave ebbing to shore. There’s no chance this is a small injury, so no way that he’ll be able to finish the season. Baseball is the first thing he’s been truly able to enjoy for years, and the thought of losing it…

It’s the first time he cuts again, breaking the promise he’d made to Billy. He wishes that it was the last.

\--

Losing Grace, his partner, seeing it all happen and knowing that it will live in his memory, vivid and harsh and overlapping the good memories--it almost ruins him. The haze he’s in, he almost cuts too deep, almost makes a decision he’ll never come back from. 

It’s only the thought of his daughter, her bright smile and loving hugs that saves him.

He could never leave her, never dim that wonderful shining star that is his Grace.

\--

By the time he’s met Steve and stumbles into what will be his greatest romantic love, found himself in the arms of his true family, he’s given up hope of there ever being a day that he no longer willingly adds to the scars on his body. But with every soft touch, every smile and shared “I love you,” he finds himself pieced back together again, mended with their love and loyalty and his burning  _ hope.  _

**Author's Note:**

> not my best work, no, but Danny wanted to express his sadness. let me know what you think?


End file.
